February 20 Mud Bay 22 km

This particular day I had to be up by 5am and have our guests from Luxembourg at the airport to check in for thier flight by 7am (an hour or more drive depending on traffic)  I hadn't worked the night before (usual shift being 4-midnight on a friday) cause I knew this day (saturday) would be tough.  BUT I was scheduled to work 4-midnight this day!

This was the hardest walking I have ever done BUT it was the most beautiful day!
I wasn't feeling 100% when I arrived and it was an 8am start as we were doing 22km and like to meet everyone for lunch by noon.  We have actually started a staggered start... as it takes longer for marathoners so we start an hour earlier than half marathoners and the 10k'ers start half hour after that.

So this day I am wearing my knee brace as my knee seemed to be giving me a very rough time over the week.  I knew the trail would be flat which I felt was a big bonus but in the end I think I over compensated with the knee brace and did more harm than good .

Group photo

the weather was great - it was cold starting out but the sun warmed things up really fast.  No hats really needed today unless you were trying to keep the sun out of your eyes.  You can see some frost on the ground and fog over the water but that disappeared quick.

Some of our beautiful scenery

Along this route we were being watched very closely... there were so many eagles!

One thing about these long fast paced walks... when you get 11km from your vehicle... you still have to go 11 km to get BACK to your vehicle... My knee brace was giving me grief - when I was sweating my brace would slide down about half an inch - twice I stopped to adjust it as it was causing blisters around my knee cap cause it wouldn't stay in place.  I have lost weight since I bought it and am wondering if that is why it was sliding so much too.  stopping to do anything is not a good option with this group if you don't want to run to keep up... In this case I had to keep every bit of energy into thinking about anything other than getting back to the truck.  Once one starts to "want" to be back the trail gets VERY long.  My thoughts drifted to the farms we walked by and the manure smell from them spreading on the fields...to the eagles in trees or on power poles watching me walk by and me making sure I wasn't in any line of fire... I kept the group within sight but I was definitely slowing down and in a lot of pain.  I ached from head to toe!  I've never felt this way on a walk before.

Here is a photo of Diane and I about a km away from the turn around point

I DID make it back to the truck and I DID complete the 22km - So I am told I would have completed more than a half marathon.   Upon finishing I was DONE!!!  I didn't go to the lunch as it can take a very long time for orders and it was an hour drive home (approximately) - I went directly home, carefully crawled into a hot tub with epsom salts... dragged myself out half hour later and flopped into bed for an hour and a half nap... crawled out of bed and dragged myself to work.  When I got home that night there was no need to do anything to "wind down" I flopped into bed and slept like a log!